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Wo. 500. Oct. 22, 1859-1 THE LlADEB. U75...
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Total £10,300,000 Tliis is very . nearly...
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LATEST INDIAN nSTTBDIilGENCE. The overla...
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THE PROPHET OF THE PUNJAB. The Sealkote ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Indian Finance Mk. George Camfdeli. Has ...
that fissure is sufficient ta swallow up the edifice . It is impossible to meet it by loan , to add half a million every year to the immoveable charges ; It is impossible to throw it upon England , for England with a continental war upon her hands would yield up India to its princes rather than subject herself to taxation for its sake . The deficit must be met either l ) y permanent reductions , or by permanent imposts , or by both . Mr . Campbell accepts the last alternative , and while admitting the necessity of a redistribution of civii ; allowances helieyes that in Jhe military expenditure alone will real relief be found . He would reduce it on a plan to be briefly thus described . He would turn at least half the native army , and two-thirds of the military police throughout India , into constabulary , with military organisation , but no arms . Every man now in the army should be allowed on dismissal to volunteer into the constabulary , customs , patrols , and other quasi military departments , and the numbers then gradually reduced . We should be rid thus at once of the military police and of the native army , without giving any shock to vested interests . The new constabulary will still require European officers , while the decrease in armed natives will enable us to decrease the number of royal regiments . The total saying Mr . Campbell estimates at four millions sterling . The estimate is probably under the truth , more particularly if we postpone it to the time when the Triangular Railway will be completed ; but it is tlve only saving as yet possible . All savings from civil establishments must be spent in increasing the gross number of officers . There remains the resource of taxation , and the following shows the line our efforts irfbhis direction ought to take : — Reduction df the army £ 4 , 000 , 000 Special taxes on the wealthy 400 , 000 Succession duty 400 , 000 Tax on trades and professions 400 , 000 Equalisation of stamps and fines 200 , 000 Local taxes to pay local police 200 , 000 Equalisation of the opium tax 500 , 000 Madras and Bombay salt increase 400 , 000 Tax on tobacco , betel , & c 2 , 000 , 000 Saving , of interest on Government Bank Notes 1 , 000 , 000 Sea customs increase ; 800 , 000
Wo. 500. Oct. 22, 1859-1 The Lladeb. U75...
Wo . 500 . Oct . 22 , 1859-1 THE LlADEB . U 75
Total £10,300,000 Tliis Is Very . Nearly...
Total £ 10 , 300 , 000 Tliis is very . nearly what has been attempted , with the exception of the issue of Government notes , and it allows a fair margin for the increase of expense which inevitably attends civilisation . That equilibrium cannot , however , be maintained without another reform , one to which most Indian thinkers are gradually drawn :- — "We shall never succeed in remodelling our taxatioa and expenditure to the advantage of our
that of Mr . Bright . It . is one which , however opposed to all the instincts of , the dominant class , may yet be forced on-their attention > by circumstances it will be impossible wholly to disregard . Any serious collapse of the exchequer would compel the ministry , at home either to redistribute power , or abandon the outlying provinces . They are not likely to adopt - the seeond expedient first . It is even now the vastness of our rule which checks the development of new sources of revenue . Twenty taxes could be put Northern
on in Bengal which are inapplicable to India . The Madras Government , deprived of its nominal surplus for imperial expenses * and left free to carry out its own irrigation ideas , would probably soon find itself with disposable resources . Bombay has a wealthy class-who might be taxed with effect , and the rulers of the Punjab Would gladly shift part of the heavy burden now borne by the cultivators on to the non-agricultural class . The centralisation of power , however valuable to check expenditure , is powerless to developenew resources . —Friend of India . ' "
finances , till we have in a very large degree something of that localisation of finance which is so extraordinarily wanting in India ; till , I mean , Gvery local administration , great and small , is in some degree bound to regulate its expenditure by its receipts . In this particular subject we have obtained a false centralisation , which is in fact nothing but anarchy . The Supreme Government is in a most difficult and unsatisfactory position . It checks the finances without really administering the executive administration .
" . Local finance is a thing unknown . Everything , collected goes to the credit of the Government of India and every thing expended is expended from the common treasury of the empire . Officials in this country are , to a remarkable extent , local in their prejudices and ambitions . Most public spirited they certainly are . But every man looks to the good of his own province , and listens to those around him . Consequently we find that the better the administration the more lie looks to local interests . "No one cares to propose a new tax in his own province , tor the proceeds would only go to the Government of India ; and . few much care to reduce an expenditure . Every man shows that this , or that expenditure is desirable , and probably snows so with very good . reason , but no one weighs the cost , The budget system seems to have been
in some degree designed to remedy this evil , but it has been very imperfectly understood , and as yet the only result seems to be to cause additional delay in obtaining sanction for anything pressingly required . Who has yet Heard of propositions for self-taxation volunteered by any local government ? Madras and Bombay have been for years aggrieved about the check upon their expenditure , but has any propositions for raising the disproportionately low salt duties of those Presidencies , or equalising the starnj ) duties , or otherwise improving their finance , over come from Madras or Bombay ? Are not , on the contrary , such propositions usually strenuously resisted ?< -7-and even in these days is there not a disposition to maintain the claim of those faithful armies in wbioh the mutiny did not occur , and to object to their reduction ?" Mr . Catupbeildoqa notapparently perceive that with thq . pawor of taxation the power of legislation must also bo divided } that his plan ! is , in its main features ,
Latest Indian Nsttbdiilgence. The Overla...
LATEST INDIAN nSTTBDIilGENCE . The overland mail which arrived this weekbroxight Calcutta advices to the 9 th of September . There had been a disturbance in Central India , at Mundleseer , which is said to have been caused by the rebel chief , the Delhi Prinee , Feroze Shah . He is reported to have made an attack on the station , releasing no less than 700 men confined in the gaol at that station . Captain Hawes , the recently appointed political agent was killed . A force has been ordered from Bombay . On the frontier of Oude , the Nana , Bala Bab , and the Begum continue to find a refuge , with numerous followers ; This is the only vitality remaining in the rebellion , and
G . H . Stergusson , controlled , by a committee of two shareholders—Mr . Gubbins and Colonel Davidson . A telegram has since been received in advance of the Bombay mail of ^ the 27 th , which says that Central India is . still unsettled , and the frontier districts of Nepaul are still occupied by the Nana and his followers . The Waghers , we are informed , are still in insurrection , and a force is to be sent against them . .
which would have been ended ere now but for the duplicity . of Jung Bahadbor . He is angry at the treatment he has received ; like all Asiastics , he exaggerates enormously the aid he has rendered , and seems to have proposed to himself the most preposterous rewards . The rebels in Nepaul live by plunder , and are still fed by the Nana with false hopes . A very few occasionally surrender . Scattered bodies lurk in their oid haunts , the Seronj and Xullutpore jungles , where they are helped by neighbouring chiefs , and occasionally sally forth to plunder—in one recent case the dak—on the Bombay and Agra Trunk Road .
Some of the discharged European troops have already sailed from Calcutta . The behaviour of all , except the 5 th Europeans still at Berharnpore , has been good . With a view to being ready for dispatch to China , some of the royal regiments are being concentrated around Calcutta and Madras . The legislative Council of India was to be adjourned . The Englishman attributes the resolution of the Governor-General to displeasure at the independence the council has displayed , and asserts that its adjournment nominally for two months is really sine die .
_ . ,...,.... „ . The bill to tax professions and trades in India , after much opposition in the Council , had passed its second reading , and been referred to a select committee . Officials are not to be exempt . The bill will probably come into operation on January 1 st , I 860 . It amounts to an income tax of sevenpence in the pound . The provision of the Criminal Procedure Bill which would have rendered Europeans liable to undergo a preliminary investigation before native magistrates had be , en successfully resisted . of the Friend India
In the overland summary oj we read :- * - " The Legislative Council have closed their labours for an interval of two mouths after passing an act to enable the Governor-General to leave Calcutta for seven months , carrying with him the full powerfl of the Governor-General in Council , except that of making laws , I « ord Canning will leave in the first or second week of October , accompanied by two of hie . secretaries . His tour is to be - ' a season for the public recognition of services rendered during the late mutiny , and a visible assertion of the Queen ' s government . It is to embrace 'the recognition of many new tenures in Oude , the reception of the influential native chiefs from the west of
the Jumna , in the Cis-Sutlej States , the Punjaub , and elsewhere . ' He is to inspect Lucknow and Delhi , and hold personal conferences with the lieutenant-Governors of the North-West Provinces , the Punjaub , and the Chief Commissioner of Oude , in respeet to the future government of those vast and important territories , ' Meanwhile the Income Tax BUI lies with a select committee of the Council , and will be read a third time on their reassembling , in order to its coming into operation by the beginning of 18 C 0 . But what changes may it not meanwhile undergo , with Mr . WUeon as Finance Minister , and Sir Bartle ffrer © in the Council , ? ' ' The shareholders of the North-Western . Bank have intrusted the wlndlng-run of their affairs to Mr .
The Prophet Of The Punjab. The Sealkote ...
THE PROPHET OF THE PUNJAB . The Sealkote Fuqueer , Hubeeb Shah , was hanged at the Jiahore district jail oh Saturday , the 24 th of August . The thing went oflf just like any ordinary execution , and there was not the slightest stir or excitement ! Inquiries have for the past six months been on foot regarding him and his antecedents , and though the inquiries are not yet complete , we can give our readers a few particulars regarding him . He declared himself to the last to be a sheikh by birth , and a native of Meerpoor Choumuk , near Poonch , in the territories of the Maharajah of Jutnmoo . But it is shown almost conclusively that he was not born there . He is 'believed to be of the
low But-kunjur tribe , and to be a native of Jutnmoo itself . In this tribe it is well known that the men are all scamps , and the women prostitutes . Under these circumstances , it is no wonder that the man never could explain satisfactorily who his father was . Some of this Euqueer ' s antecedents are equally edifying . For some time he was the menial servant of a dancing girl at Sealkote ; he used to fill her hookah and light her pipe . The arrant impostor , however , soon took to religious mendicancy . He announced himself a devotee of Imam Mehndee to
( who in the Mahomedan belief is a prophet yet come ) , and took the name of Mehndee Shah , since changed to . Hubeeb Shah . One day in 1852 , when petty rent-free tenures were being investigated at Sealkote , he swaggered into the - Settlement-roffice , and said that when his prophet appeared on earth all the land would be rent-free . During 1857 he appears to have domesticated himself with the mutinous cavalry at Sealkote . In 1858 , that is last , summer , he appeared at Nonar , a Village in the Sealkote district , and alighted at a shrine . While there he invoked the name of God with a good deal of
star-gazing , and said there was to be a j reign on earth of Hindoo and Mahomedan divinities ; a Devee for the Hindoos and an Imam for the Mahomedans . He would say " horse , to horse 1- ^ -the time is near ! " By these mean & he would terrify the rustics , and make them propitiate him by food and lodging . His costume at this time was elegant , we might say imposing . A conical peaked hat , a long . bluish robe , a green kerchief , and loose trousers , made people think he wa 9 a saint from the far countries beyond the Indus . Not content with this , however , he did while at Nonar a stroke of business which ultimately brought him to the gallows . .
He goes to a Mahomedan Moulvee who follows the mild profession of village schoolmaster , under the Educational department . This gentleman , though physically a cripple , has got a fanatical spirit ; The Fuqueer then gets the schoolmaster to draft some proclamations . Some five or six are written in this way ; some few more copies are made by the little boys at the school ( ingenious youth ) . These precious documents breathe the spirit of the doctrine which the Fuqueor had been preaching orally ; they appeal both to Hindoos and Mahomedans ; the former are called on toarm for the Devee , the latter for the Imam . The revenue officials ore behalf of those
invited to establish treasuries on ?• parties . " Double pay is promised to everybody , and a reward is fixed for the head of every European . But the Euqueer paid us the bad compliment of fixing the reward at a very unremunerative rate—Rs . 20 a head Most fanatics would say that they could not do the job at so low a figure ; also the Fuqueer did not kowtow to the Sikhs ; neither they nor their Gooroo are mentioned in the proclamation . Each" proclamation is addressed to some particular locality either in the Sealkote district or in some part of the Reohna Doab . This shows that his aspirations wore not extensive . Armed with these naners . the Fuoueer has for the last twelve months districttie
been wandering about the Senlkoto , . doubtless unfolded his doctrine more or less everywhere ; in some cases it is proved that he did . It is to be presumed that he showed his proclamations to a select few , but it would bo impossible to prove exactly to whom he showed them . However , in July last the talk about Imam Mehndeebecanie more general , and the Moulvees . generally , ^ the prisoner himself said ) seemed , to expeot a prophet-, so our ffuqueer goes to Zuffcrwal , near 8 ea > koto and gives a proclamation to the Tehneeldar ^ the chief native official there , and requefltBAlwt ^ migntJ
homodan , had the sense and loyalty to glve ^ im ^ wp to the authorities ; the result has been the «*«»» - tion of the JETuqueer . Ab , he wan mounting < t « fl
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1859, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22101859/page/11/
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